Of course, the defending kings of the rough-and-tumble Northeast jungle are the Boston Bruins, led by Milan Lucic, Zdeno Chara and Mark Stuart. But, as Kennedy points out: “Toronto will counter with Luke Schenn and new bruisers Colton Orr, Garnet Exelby, Francois Beauchemin and transplanted Hab Mike Komisarek, thus preserving the Lucic-Komisarek storyline.”

This goes along with what I’ve been writing since the weekend. The Leafs are at the very least going to be tough as nails. And with Alex Kovalev sticking around to play for Ottawa, the Sens are at least dangerous with the puck. Only Buffalo doesn’t seem to be much tougher (plus the Sabres led Andrew Peters go), but their speedy, aggressive style still always gives the Bruins fits.

You take thoughts about what the divisional games are going to be like and combine them with the sight of the Bruins’ prospects hitting the ice this week and you have to start counting the minutes until the 2009-10 season.

Definitely need a left hand shot on the RW on the PP, similar to what Savard used to do. Work the half wall and feed the bunch of right hand shot skill plyares the Bruins have. I would suggest putting Marchand in that Savard role, have Lucic play down low on the overload side and put a Horton/Seguin on the LW for the one timers.